Carb Legal Mods

[cganne]

As I live in the lovely state of CA and have had numerous encounters with BS traffic stops back in my ricer days I was wondering if there are any CARB approved mods available for the E30? (Intake, Headers, Exhaust)

[nando]

AFAIK you can swap a motor from a newer car (say, E36 M3) and get it carb certified.

[cganne]

I'm just looking for headers, intake & exhaust for the M20 that is smog legal (if any) so I don't have to deal with the BS. Plus, always fun to stick it to them after they have you on the side of the road and all your S$#% is legal.

[nando]

any headers/intake that is carb legal is going to be a complete waste of money.

there are lots of catbacks that are legal, you just can't touch the center/cat section.

[cganne]

Which ones? I have searched several and have yet to see any that come wth docs or numbers engraved. I hear you on the waste of money, afterall I suppose you just get a $10 fix it ticket but it is a complete PITA to get everything signed and wait in line at the courthouse.

[Guerc]

Metric Mechanic will extrude hone your exhaust manifolds. They grind out inner material making it flow better, getting header-like performance from "stock" exhaust manifolds.

It ain't cheap. I have no idea how effective it is. But the Fuzz would never know, short of disassembling the engine. But just like headers, everything has to work well in combination with improved intake, cam, and exhaust. Doing only one mod may only detract from performance.

Or, you could move to Nevada.

[nando]

Which ones? I have searched several and have yet to see any that come wth docs or numbers engraved. I hear you on the waste of money, afterall I suppose you just get a $10 fix it ticket but it is a complete PITA to get everything signed and wait in line at the courthouse.

catbacks aren't emissions equipment AFAIK?

[Lunner]

If you read the BAR's website, you find that technically there are ZERO carb legal mods for our cars. (At least presently, I think Dinan may have gone through the process years ago but if they did they aren't making those parts anymore).

The emissions laws in CA aren't based on logic, i.e., does it make the car pollute more?, but instead based on the simple principle that anything that isn't stock, or a direct replacement for stock parts, is illegal.
UNLESS, the manufacturer goes through the lengthy process of dealing with the CARB to get an exemption order for that part. Based on what I can recall from searching the BAR's website last time I was curious about this, that pretty much only leaves the "Tornado" air intake insert as a 'CARB legal' mod. If you don't know what that is, don't bother looking into it, it's a joke.

What you're looking for is mods you can get away with.

So right off the bat we can eliminate any modifcation to the intake or exhaust, before the cat.

If someone knows more, please chime in, but your 'carb legal' mods pretty much are limited to:

1. ECU chip, because it's out of sight in your glove box.
2. Freer flowing muffler, but it still has to be within decibel limits.
3. High flow air filter, that still fits in the factory air box.
4. Miller MAF conversion, but don't hold me to that, it just looks stock if you remove the lettering, and people have been able to get smogged with it.
5. 4.10 LSD Differential, which I believe is techincally still illegal but again, out of sight.
6. Bigger injectors with the ECU upgrade, again, techincally illegal, but whoever's checking you out would have to know to look for yellow injectors where blue ones should be.
7. And lasty, anything you can do internally to the engine, i.e., custom pistons to raise compression, stroking, porting, flow matching, extrude honing, etc. If it still looks like an m20b25 on the outside, and you don't tell them otherwise, then it is. Oh, but keep in mind hot cam's can eff up your idle and affect emissions, so there's an 'invisible' mod I wouldn't jump into.

And of course the really frustrating thing about a lot of these is they'll actually help INCREASE mpg on our cars.
But still, no exemption number, no smog. Which is why you see every jackass in a 5.0 or Integra with carb legal headers, intake, etc, while we're left high and dry.
F---ing CARB...good thing BMW designed these engines pretty damn well the first time.

Hope that helps.

-Brett

[Jesse30]

just swap the engine. its not hard at all and you'll get way more performance out of it than modding an m20. unless you wanna spend 10k on rebuilding it to be an NA monster, or just boost it which is very very noticeable by police when they open your hood

[der affe]

move the fuck out of cali, best CARB legal mod you can do!

[accident]

the dinan chips have an EO number on them.

[McGyver]

wow, california really sucks. im glad VA really doesnt care what you do!